Take the plunge - part two

TAKE THE PLUNGE – GLORIA EMERSON – PART TWO

None of that stuff was expected from any of us in the little beginners class. We were only to jump, after brief but intense instruction, with Istel’s newly designed parachute, to show that any dope could do it. It was a parachute with a thirty-two-foot canopy; a large cutout hole funneled escaping air. You steered with two wooden knobs instead of having to pull hard on the back straps, or risers. The new parachute increased lateral speed, slowed down the rate of descent, reduced oscillation. We were told we could even land standing up but that we should bend our knees and lean to one side. The beginners jumped at eight a.m., the expert sky divers performed their dazzling tricks later when a crowd came.

Two of us boarded a Cessna 180 that lovely morning, the wind no more than a tickle. I was not myself, no longer thin and no longer fast. The jump suit, the equipment, the helmet, the boots, had made me into someone thick and clumsy, moving as strangely as if they had put me underwater and said I must walk. It was hard to bend, to sit, to stand up. I did not like the man with me; he was eager and composed. I wanted to smoke, to go to the bath room, but there were many straps around me that I did not understand. At twenty three hundred feet, the hateful, happy man went out, making a dumb thumbs-up sign.

When my turn came, I suddenly felt a stab of pain for all the forgotten soldiers who balked and were kicked out, perhaps shot, for their panic and for delayig the troops. I was hooked to a static line, an automatic opening device, which made it impossible to lie down or tie myself to something. The drillmaster could not hear all that I shouted at him. But he knew the signs of mutiny and removed my arms from his neck. He took me to the doorway, sat me down, and yelled “Go!” or “Now!” or “Out!”

There was nothing to do but be punched by the wind which knocked the spit from my mouth, reach for the wing, strut, hold on hard, kick back the feet so weighted and helpless in those boots, and let go. The parachute opened with a plop, as Istel had sworn to me that it would. When my eyelids opened as well, I saw the white gloves on my hands were old ones from Saks Fifth Avenue, gloves I wore with summer dresses. There was dribble on my chin; my eyes and nose were leaking. I wiped everything with the gloves.

There was no noise; the racket of the plane and wind had gone away. The cold and sweet stillness seemed an astonishing, undreamed-of gift. Then I saw what I had never seen before, will never see again; endless sky and earth in colours and textures no one had ever described. Only then did the parachute become a most loveable and docile toy; this wooden knob to go left, this wooden knob to go right. The pleasure of being there, the rifting and the calm, rose to a afever; I wanted to stay pinned in the air and stop the ground fom coming closer.

The target was a huge arrow in a sandpit. I was across to see it, afraid of nothing now, even the wind was kind and the trees looked soft. I landed on my feet in the pit with a bump, then sat down for a bit. Later that day I was taken over to meet General James Gavin, who had led the 82^nd airborne in the D-day landing at Normandy. Perhaps it was to prove to him that the least promising pupil, the gawkiest, could jump. It did not matter that I stumbled and fell before him in those boots, which walked with a will of their own. Later, Mr. Istel’s mother wrote a charming note of congratulations. Everyone at the centre was pleased; in fact, I am sure they were surprised.

Perhaps this is what I had in mind all the time.

Here...Alas Mrose...the original contents by www.sensualityface.com or www.fairyage.com / describe with the help of Modern English Gloria Emerson